"Shot on iPhone" is about to get a lot cooler, as NASA is now allowing astronauts to carry their own smartphones aboard two upcoming spaceflights.
It looks like NASA is getting ready to ease up on some of its longstanding rules surrounding what can and cannot be taken on spaceflights — and the iPhone is set to be a part of it.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has publicly announced that the Crew-12 and Artemis II astronauts can carry their own iPhones to document the journey how they want. The announcement surfaced on X just shy of 11:00 pm ET on February 4.
NASA astronauts will soon fly with the latest smartphones, beginning with Crew-12 and Artemis II. We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world. Just as important, we challenged long-standing
— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) February 5, 2026
NASA has strict rules surrounding what is and isn't allowed on spaceflight. As Ars Technica points out, before this decision, the newest camera slated to fly on the Artemis II mission around the Moon was a 2016 Nikon DSLR, alongside GoPro cameras that were a decade old.
This shouldn't be surprising, though. Any modern technology must be tested, retested, and tested again before it makes the cut. And, there are concerns about radiation exposure to the devices, which is why the G3 PowerPC processor is still in heavy use in orbit.
And even if it does pass the tests, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be given the green light. Ars Technia points out that not only is the NASA approval process thorough, it's also painstakingly slow.
But that seems to be changing, now. It will be interesting to see which shots the astronauts capture on their iPhones.
Crew-12 is a NASA-SpaceX mission to bring four astronauts to the International Space Station. The flight will return the ISS to a full crew following a medical evacuation that took place in early January.
The Artemis II is NASA's first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years, and is set to take place in March after a hydrogen leak postponed the February launch. It will send four astronauts on a 10-day flyby around the moon.
This isn't the iPhone's first time in space, though. In 2011, two iPhone 4s units flew on the final space shuttle mission. An assortment of Apple Watches, AirPods, iPods, and iPads have been spotted on space missions too.
And, long ago, the Macintosh Portable sent the first email from space from the USS Atlantis on August 9, 1991.
Astronauts flying on private missions aren't subject to NASA's restrictions, either. Both Isaacman's Polaris flight and the Axiom missions to the space station had smartphones in tow.
